Secondly,
while I agree with the premise of the article, I still think all people of
either gender have a responsibility to do the best they can with what they have
been blessed with. So, often especially in college I associated with women who
went out of their way to be unattractive or frumpy under the mistaken idea that
a real price would see past it. Not so. The best candy bar still requires an
appetizing wrapper.

Yes, men can imagine what it is like to be sized up and judged every day of
their lives. Men compete with each other for status, women, money and just about
everything else every day of their lives. But enough whining! We all are born
with a genetic endowment. Some win the lottery; most don't. Men are
primarily attracted visually. That is not going to change. Women are attracted
by status - also not going to change. Women have a path for maximizing their
attractiveness and so do men. I work hard every day to further my career. I also
hit the gym almost every day. It is dominated by men. If women wish to be as
attractive as possible to men, they should be there with me. It is not easy.
But, you get what you work for, not what you wish for.

Great story by Katie Harmer. Read it as soon as I saw Dustin Hoffman's pic.
He is a truly great actor. I knew that when I saw "Midnight Cowboy." But
when I saw "Tootsie," wow! A straight man, disguised as a straight
woman, then he turns into a lesbian. Layers of characterization. A truly
masterful acting performance. I have nothing but admiration for Dustin Hoffman!
As for what the article is about--the pressures on women to look good, yes it is
a terrible burden. There's a lot of pressure on men to look good, too. Not
as much, and if a guy makes enough money or is a high achiever in the arts, for
example, or other fields, it's less. But there is pressure on men too. But
the people who REALLY suffer from discrimination because they don't look
good is the elderly.

I thought it was a very heartwarming epifeny Dustin Hoffman had, and that he
made it public is wonderful and humble thing for him to do. A woman should not
have to be "attractive" in the sense Hoffman described to be worth
associating with. He wasn't saying he regreted not being attracted to
these women, he regretted not associating with them because they didn't
measure up to what he had been brainwashed into believing women needed to look
like to be worthy of a man's time.

He explained that once he
had been made up by professionals to be as attractive as nature allowed he
recognized that if he were actually a woman he would not have measure up and he
felt how painful that would be. Thanks to our popular culture this is a common
fear of many women.